Five startups have been shortlisted for the social enterprise category at the ET Startup Awards 2026, each running a business that ties profit to public good. The nominees span sanitary pad recycling, rural healthcare, carbon credits, fodder supply, and e-waste networks. Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony later this year.
This is the twelfth edition of the awards, and the social enterprise category specifically recognises what organisers call the "double bottomline" model. That framing matters: these are not charities. Each nominee generates revenue while addressing a structural problem the market alone has not solved, from India's chronic fodder shortage to the 3.4 million tonnes of e-waste the country produces annually.
Padcare Labs: keeping sanitary pads out of landfills
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Founded in 2018 by Ajinkya Dhariya, Pune-based Padcare Labs collects used sanitary pads from offices, households, and schools. The pads are processed to keep them out of landfills and away from the manual-sorting stream, where waste workers often handle them without protection. The recycled material becomes plastic plant pots and paper pulp.
Backers include 3one4 Capital, Rainmatter, and Social Alpha. The startup tackles a problem most waste management systems ignore: menstrual hygiene waste is neither segregated nor processed in most Indian cities, creating both environmental and occupational health hazards.
Cornext: silage machines for dairy farmers
Hyderabad-based Cornext, founded in 2015 by Madhav Kshatriya and Mohammed Feroz Ahmed, manufactures affordable silage baler machines and supplies baled silage from its own production units. Silage is fodder made from crops like maize and sorghum, chopped, compacted, and fermented into bales that store for up to 18 months.
The business addresses India's chronic fodder shortage, which forces dairy farmers to reduce herd sizes or sell cattle during dry seasons. Omnivore has backed the company.
Karo Sambhav: e-waste and EPR compliance
Pranshu Singhal founded Karo Sambhav in Gurugram in 2019. The circular economy startup builds nationwide collection and recycling networks for electronic waste, plastics, batteries, and glass. It also helps brands meet their Extended Producer Responsibility obligations under environment ministry regulations.
EPR rules require producers to take back and recycle a percentage of what they sell. Most brands lack the infrastructure to do this themselves, creating demand for aggregators like Karo Sambhav. Rainmatter is an investor.
Varaha: carbon credits for smallholder farmers
Varaha, founded in 2022 by Madhur Jain, Ankita Garg, and Vishal Kuchanur, works on carbon removal projects with smallholder farmers cultivating 1-2 hectare plots. The Gurugram startup helps farmers adopt sustainable practices while generating verified carbon credits sold to global companies seeking to offset emissions.
WestBridge Capital, RTP Global, and Omnivore have invested. The model creates a revenue stream for farmers who would otherwise have no way to monetise climate-friendly practices, while giving buyers access to traceable, verified credits.
CureBay: rural healthcare in Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh
CureBay, founded in 2020 by Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Shobhan Mahapatra, and Sanjay Swain, operates a hybrid healthcare network across rural and tribal India. The Bhubaneswar startup combines tech-enabled eClinics with on-ground staff to deliver doctor consultations, diagnostics, and medicines to villages in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
Bertelsmann India, British International Investment, and Elevar Equity have backed the company. The hybrid model addresses the reality that pure telemedicine does not work for populations with limited connectivity, literacy, or trust in remote consultations.
Logicity's Take
The five nominees share a pattern: each found a market gap created by regulation, infrastructure failure, or economics that excluded a population from a service. Padcare and Karo Sambhav benefit from tightening waste rules. Varaha rides corporate net-zero commitments. Cornext and CureBay fill gaps that government programs have not closed. The "double bottomline" label is less important than the underlying signal: investors and regulators are creating conditions where impact businesses can scale without depending on philanthropy.
What this category reveals about impact investing
The investor list across these five startups skews toward impact-focused funds. Omnivore, which backs Cornext and Varaha, focuses on agriculture and climate. Rainmatter, present in Padcare and Karo Sambhav, is Zerodha's climate-focused fund. Social Alpha incubates science-based social ventures.
But mainstream VC money is also present. WestBridge Capital and RTP Global in Varaha, Bertelsmann in CureBay. That mix suggests the category is maturing beyond a niche. Social enterprises no longer need to choose between impact capital with patient timelines and growth capital with return expectations. Some are attracting both.
Another example of an Indian startup reaching profitability on a sustainable model
The awards ceremony date has not been announced. ET will reveal winners across eight categories, with social enterprise being one of the smaller but increasingly watched segments.
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Source: Tech-Economic Times / ET
ET Startup Awards 2026: Full Nominees Revealed for Woman Ahead and Social Enterprise Categories
The new article provides the complete list of nominees for both the Woman Ahead category (Pallavi Shrivastava, Ankur Dahiya, Minu Margeret, Pallavi Mohadikar, Malini Adapureddy, Prachi Dharani) and begins listing Social Enterprise nominees (Padcare Labs, Corne...). It also reveals that Wipro's Rishad Premji will lead the jury meeting on August 25 in Bengaluru, and that this is the 12th edition of ETSA.
Huma Shazia
Senior AI & Tech Writer
Produced with AI assistance and reviewed by the Logicity editorial team. Learn more in our Editorial Policy.
